Graham Beck

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Anita ' s vacations are often interrupted by postage stamps

Find The Local stamp dealer might not be to everyone's priority on holiday, but for the 26-year-old Anita Lo , it is often The First point of contact.

What began at the age of five with her grandfather ' s old album and £1 bags of assorted stamps Caritas second-hand shop, have swelled to A Collection of several thousand, which are regularly updated of their travels.

"is, For many people, a stamp is just a stamp, it is The Queen 's face, either first or second-class, but there is so much more," says the London-based Public Relations consultant who once Spent £100 on an Olympic-themed stamp in Russia.

"I love scouring antique shops. When I pulled up in Barcelona or Prague and I'm all kinds of designs; it could be to check a responsive flower, or something from My Birth date, but I like to buy it In Person , stains or dog-eared corners, which can devalue it massively. "

Not surprisingly, as a younger collector, Anita takes a digital approach to your hobby.

she shares her collection on Instagram and WhatsApp and used online to search the catalog for items by the price or the country, but the hard copies are traditionally on auctions.

But, with its fusty image, your hobby raised eyebrows among your peer group has, and she confesses her "geeky" you can see they leave you feeling torn.

"It is my interest, and I enjoy it, but I don't go to the big fairs, and would never join a club or Society ; my perception is that they are mainly full of people my parents are old, a bit nerdy and I don't want to be viewed that way. Because I don't know, someone else do in my old age, this, it is a hobby that I was very much Alone . "

Tech allows Graham Beck to share the stories behind the stamps,

, however, that he is his own YouTube channel, to Explore, from stamps, to interact with like-minded people, the 32-year-old Graham Beck under a less lonely path.

Until today he has uploaded 70 videos, see it, choose a stamp at random and discover the history behind it, a trip to an Icelandic volcano, and the three statues of Liberty in New York , Paris and Las Vegas.

The South African native, now based in New York , says it is the story behind the stamp, that goes in resonance with the New Breed of philatelists (as a stamp collector styles, often the old delight-school collectors are known) and not as a special paper and printing.

Online revival

"I discovered my old childhood album when cleaning up The Attic , and started Googling the images and had this Epiphany: I realized how fascinating the stamps are really documented with all this social history, the small pieces of paper. They give a unique perspective on various topics and this is what gives it the advantage over other Hobbies. "

technology, he says, was the activation in the determination of their provenance, as well as to reach a new audience. His most popular video has attracted 80,000 views, and he sees an online revival of the topic on Twitter and Instagram, and the increasing use of multimedia at trade shows, as crucial for the production of the next Generation .

collectors often need help organizing your stamp

"We have the excitement of stamp collecting, it was shows by learning more about them on YouTube, or the use of QR codes on the stamp, the exhibitions that can be scanned with the phone and with a video. It can all seem a bit phony to the traditional collectors, but I'm all for experimentation and the promotion to get more people to collect. "

It is a feeling echoed by James George , head of the Commonwealth in the case of stamp dealers and philatelic publishers, Stanley Gibbons in London.

He cited, such as the little-known world of competitive Philately , the participants collected their collections at The World 's fairs such as the London Stampex, by better accessible information online.

"is The provenance so much more detailed now; one of my clients is a Boer war collector and he no longer has the military mail of besieged cities, the record shows he, together with information about the specific soldier; his photography, military, brings all the connection to Life that people - philatelic material is only the envelope. "

With a heritage that dates back to 1856, which has the rare stamp dealer, a constant concomitant phenomenon of the impact of technology on trade.

Known for its collector catalogs, which allows for recently, My collection app The Collector to store and manage your collection, practically, a step, James says, has adopted the traditional collectors.

stamp collecting has think moved from its low-tech early days

"I, there is a perception that because of the traditional demographic hobbyists, the trade would be resistant to technology, but it is actually The Opposite . E-commerce was adopted almost immediately and authentication techniques, such as spectral analysis of printing inks have been since the mid-90s.

"With the amount of money involved, the spread at The Top end of the market, fraud detection technology is very challenging and far. "

Stanley Gibbons " in-house experts check for fake stamps or other inconsistencies around letter-size and hole-spacing, and in more complex cases, send them to The Royal Philatelic Society .

George James says, The Internet has been the "best" for stamp collectors

Here, forensic experts, a video spectral comparator, the software for the authentication of Bank notes and passports - the comparison of the optical properties of the ink and recognize the overlooked clues with the Naked Eye .

And for The Collector to turn sharp sleuth, a new Generation of automated analysis tool that allows you to check problems with their stamp before buying, often without cost.

the"Image-analysis software, such as Retro, Reveal, can reveal the edit image of a stamp in 50 different ways something is fraudulent, is very widely used about the hobby," James said.

"is There any other way in which technology has made the trading much more open and fairer. The Internet was The Best for Philately . "

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Source of news: bbc.com